GUEST POST, Mrs. Petrin learns something new!

As a teacher, new to Hester Jr. High, I feel like each day thus far has been a “learn something new day”. I have really embraced my role as a facilitator of digital literacy. In order to reach my goal of becoming a distinguished educator, I have made an effort to become a connected educator. Meaning, I am making connections and collaborating with other educators all over the world using web 2.0 tools.

 I consider myself to be a private person, so putting my thoughts and ideas out into the world is a little scary for me. I started small by joining Edmodo Communities. I am able to share lesson ideas and resources with other teachers just like me! After attending a “Flipping Your Classroom” conference, I went out on a limb and joined Twitter. Next, I began to ‘Follow’ companies and people that relate to educational technology. I’ve since made a point to Tweet at least once a day about things we are doing in class or interesting articles about education that I’ve read. Each time I tweet, though, I have doubts. Am I using @ and # correctly? Have I given proper credit? Are my tweets too long? Is anyone even reading them? Turns out they are! I have slowly began to acquire more followers and have noticed that some of my tweets are being re-tweeted by the companies I follow!

Last night I took part in my first ever Twitter Chat. A twitter chat is an interactive conversation at a specific time on Twitter, using a common hashtag, such as #edmodochat. As this was a brand new experience for me, I was very nervous, but I joined the conversation anyway! It was awesome. The two Edmodo Ambassadors, facilitating the chat, were from Australia. It was 5 pm on Wednesday night for me and 10 am on Thursday morning for them. There was even a participant from Italy, where it was 1 am! The way the chats work are the person or people facilitating the discussion post a question relating to the topic and whoever has joined the chat can respond.

Last night, there were four discussion questions during the hour chat and about 10 participants. I learned how to use some new features and apps in Edmodo, and how other teachers utilize Edmodo in their classrooms. I even discussed creating a group with another teacher around the world, so our students could “meet” and collaborate. Another great feature is that this conversation is automatically stored “in the cloud”, meaning I can log into Twitter, type #edmodochat, and review the conversation anytime I need to. I was able to tweet directly to @Edmodo and @CommonSenseEdu thanking them for the wonderful resources they provide and they responded back to me! I learned some abbreviations for commonly used words, and best of all, I now feel more comfortable using the Twitter platform.

 I guess the easiest way to learn something new really is to dive in head first. I would recommend joining Twitter to any of my colleagues. It is a great way to connect with others who are in the trenches, experiencing the same things we are. Follow me @sarahpetrin. See you online!